Speaker for the Dead

of their three-thousand-mile odyssey, the end of Demosthenes' career; like the ishaxa, she had found a way to root in the ice of this world and draw nourishment that the soil of other lands had not provided.
      The baby kicked hard, taking her from her reverie; she looked around to see Ender coming toward her, walking along the wharf with his duffel slung over his shoulder. She understood at once why he had brought his bag: He meant to go along on the söndring. She wondered whether she was glad of it. Ender was quiet and unobtrusive, but he could not possibly conceal his brilliant understanding of human nature. The average students would overlook him, but the best of them, the ones she hoped would come up with original thought, would inevitably follow the subtle but powerful clues he would inevitably drop. The result would be impressive, she was sure-- after all, she owed a great debt to his insights over the years-- but it would be Ender's brilliance, not the students'. It would defeat somewhat the purpose of the söndring.
      But she wouldn't tell him no when he asked to come. Truth to tell, she would love to have him along. Much as she loved Jakt, she missed the constant closeness that she and Ender used to have before she married. It would be years before she and Jakt could possibly be as tightly bound together as she and her brother were. Jakt knew it, too, and it caused him some pain; a husband shouldn't have to compete with his brother-in-law for the devotion of his wife.
      "Ho, Val," said Ender.
      "Ho, Ender." Alone on the dock, where no one else could hear, she was free to call him by the childhood name, ignoring the fact that the rest of humanity had turned it into an epithet.
      "What'll you do if the rabbit decides to bounce out during the söndring?"
      She smiled. "Her papa would wrap her in a skrika skin, I would sing her silly Nordic songs, and the students would suddenly have great insights to the impact of reproductive imperatives on history."
      They laughed together for a moment, and suddenly Valentine knew, without noticing why she knew, that Ender did not want to go on the söndring, that he had packed his bag to leave Trondheim, and that he had come, not to invite her along, but to say good-bye. Tears came unbidden to her eyes, and a terrible devastation wrenched at her. He reached out and held her, as he had so many times in the past; this time, though, her belly was between them, and the embrace was awkward and tentative.
      "I thought you meant to stay," she whispered. "You turned down the calls that came."
      "One came that I couldn't turn down."
      "I can have this baby on söndring, but not on another world."
      As she guessed, Ender hadn't meant her to come. "The baby's going to be shockingly blond," said Ender. "She'd look hopelessly out of place on Lusitania. Mostly black Brazilians there."
      So it would be Lusitania. Valentine understood at once why he was going-- the piggies' murder of the xenologer was public knowledge now, having been broadcast during the supper hour in Reykjavik. "You're out of your mind."
      "Not really."
      "Do you know what would happen if people realized that the Ender is going to the piggies' world? They'd crucify you!"
      "They'd crucify me here, actually, except that no one but you knows who I am. Promise not to tell."
      "What good can you do there? He'll have been dead for decades before you arrive."
      "My subjects are usually quite cold before I arrive to Speak for them. It's the main disadvantage of being itinerant."
      "I never thought to lose you again."
      "But I knew we had lost each other on the day you first loved Jakt."
      "Then you should have told me! I wouldn't have done it!"
      "That's why I didn't tell you. But it isn't true, Val. You would have done it anyway. And I wanted you to. You've never been happier." He put his hands astride her waist. "The Wiggin genes were crying out for continuation. I hope you have a dozen more."
      "It's considered impolite to have more than four, greedy to go past five, and barbaric to have more than six." Even though she joked, she was deciding how best to handle the söndring-- let the graduate assistants take it without her, cancel it altogether, or postpone it until Ender left?
      But Ender made the question moot. "Do you think your husband would let one of his boats take me out to the mareld overnight, so I can shuttle to my starship in the morning?"
      His haste was cruel.